It is not clear if Chinese leader Xi said that the Korean Peninsula "actually used to be a part of China." What's clear is that it was quoted by President Trump in an interview, and not a verbatim account of Xi's explanation about Korea. And that the two spoke through interpreters. The White House did not make a clarification after this story belatedly went viral in Korea.

Often Western media find the cause of widespread outrage among Koreans either in the undiplomatic expression of statements or in the Koreans themselves, who are particularly sensitive to external conditions amid heightened tensions between North and South Korea.

As the native Korean fact-checker of the Washing Post confirmed, "Korea has been long intertwined culturally and historically with China but was not under direct and official territorial control by China, despite repeated Chinese invasions."

Xi may have referred to the tributary system between China and its surrounding countries including Korea, which has long functioned as a peace-keeping arrangement. Korea gained protection from China while it paid "tribute," or gifts in exchange for securing its independent position.

Professor Park Tae-gyun of Seoul National University pointed out that there is a serious communication gap or misunderstanding in Korea's diplomatic relations. And it comes from the Korean side's "wishful thinking."

Prof. Park can cite numerous examples of failed communication because of these one-sided and ungrounded optimistic expectations.

Sometimes it comes from paucity of professional understanding of diplomatic languages. The fatal and famous example was the phrase of the Korea-US treaty of 1882 that the United States would provide "good offices" to help Korea if she is under foreign threat. To check original phrase, the Koreans believed America would abide by this promise, and stand firm to protect Korea from Japanese annexation.

Another example of steadfast wishful thinking of the Korean people is that the United States will side with Korea if faced with a conflict with Japan, because Japan is a criminal country that had committed aggression and inhumane mass killings in neighboring countries.

In retrospect, Koreans around the end of Joseon Kingdom (1392-1897) and during the Korean Empire (1897-1910) remained totally excluded from the negotiation tables, where the national and territorial destiny was determined.

There had been true friends of Korea who genuinely tried to help in this long process of losing a kingdom to fall to a colony of imperialist Japan. And yet, we cannot deny that Korean leaders in general lacked information about the outside world.

And for that handful of enlightened intellectuals, the challenge was too big to save the country from the voracious big powers surrounding the peninsula.

History records that Korea lost her diplomatic sovereignty in 1905 before officially being annexed by Japan in 1910. But already in August 1904, Japan began controlling the domestic matters of Korea via so-called Japanese and foreign advisors.

In June 1905, Syngman Rhee was a student at George Washington University in the States. He tried to raise his voice on behalf of the Korean people about how Japan was moving to colonize Korea, which would never be conducive to the peace of East Asia.

In July 1905 just before the Portsmouth conference was held, Rhee could get a recommendation of Governor-General of the Philippines, William Howard Taft, written to President Theodor Roosevelt. Taft seemed to be highly sympathetic to the Koreans. History tells us that a secret agreement had been made between the U.S. and Japan to connive Japan's control of Korea in exchange for America's occupation of the Philippines, which was later materialized as the Taft-Katsura secret agreement.

Young Syngman Rhee had a brief meeting with President Roosevelt and produced the memorandum. But he was asked to have the document accepted officially via the Korean Legation in Washington D.C.

Minister Kim Yun-jeong of the Korean Legation, who was expected to handle the document on Korea's behalf, refused to accept it, saying he got no instruction about that from Korea.

Rhee wrote in his diary that all official channels both Korean and American had already been occupied by the enemies. He confessed that "we Koreans were na&iuml;ve and foolish" to put too much hope on friendly gestures of diplomatic phrases.

Is Korea again standing alone like a handicapped child without knowing what's going on, exactly as it was a century ago?

Kim Ji-myung is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.